Writing On Wikipedia
It’s a collaboration in progress.
You might be used to the standard, 5-paragraph essays or minimum word counts adored by professors the world over. However, writing for Wikipedia is different in two main respects:
- You have to let the big stuff come first, and
- you’re not the only writer anymore.
Talk Pages
Collaboration is the great blessing/curse combination of Wikipedia. When writing an article, utilize the resources that are available to make the writing as strong as possible.
The best tool for this is the talk page. An article’s talk page is located in the top corner of the article, under the tab labeled “Talk”. When you first start on an article, open its talk page and take a look at the conversations and points of contention among its writers.
Play Well With Others
Not all talk pages are great tools, though, and not all articles are good for research. According to “Using Wikipedia” by Cornell University, the process of “deciding what’s neutral and having something reviewed for [Neutral Point of View] can be controversial undertakings and too uncertain to meet standards of academic rigor.”
Use your best judgment when choosing an article, as controversial articles can be accompanied by some pretty nasty talk pages.
It’s not just the heavily debated articles that can lead to trouble, though. In his article titled “Cultural Differences in Collaborative Authoring of Wikipedia”, Ulrike Pfeil mentions that culture is just one of the factors that can lead to discrepancies among Wikipedia users. Even on a fairly straightforward article like the one for “Game”, there were differences between the French, Japanese, German and Dutch versions of the article.
Peer Reviews
In the likely event that your article is peer reviewed, please remain calm. These usually happen on the talk page of the article that you’re working on or on the talk page of your sandbox. Although it can seem stressful, peer reviews usually contain valid criticisms and can give you pointers about what to fix.
Plus, if worse comes to worst and someone leaves one that’s not so civil, most peer reviews are signed and dated at the end with four tildes (~~~~). This ensures at least a little accountability on everyone’s part.
Lop Off Minutia
Most of my successes in the course came from experimenting with the format and trying to write the things that I would want to read. This is important not just when working with other Wikipedia writers, but when polishing up the article’s information. In this endeavor, I recommend:
- organizing your writing more like it’s a presentation, not a paper;
- unearthing the lead- it’s likely buried under all of your needless exposition; and
- just being as correct as you can. Get the facts right first. Everything comes second to that.
Drop the mindset you might have adopted for other writing assignments. You can’t fake your way through this, and you’ll probably need a refresher about how to cite sources. Pages like Purdue OWL and “Digital Citation” by Dr. Lucas are good tools for this, so use them liberally.
Your audience for the article is not just the people who want to learn more about your topic, but also the people that may be working with you on it. If you add something that’s not very solid or well-supported, it drags down their contributions, too.
Formatting Fails
Think back to online articles you’ve read and posts you’ve enjoyed. What made them good? What made them memorable? Once your information is solid, focus on how you’re going to present those facts. Giant walls of text make everyone’s eyes glaze over, so break it up a little. Add bullet points, numbered lists, or anything that can visually present or reinforce an idea.
It might sound like this would be a nice respite after however many long years of near-templated writing. However, old habits die hard! Check after yourself and make sure that whatever you’re writing is up to par both in terms of accurate information and good presentation. Deciding how to organize and exhibit writing was pretty difficult for me, as there are many ways to do it well.
There’s something to be said for the concept of clickbait, and while you shouldn’t intentionally mislead any readers with your title, you should try to take the most information-rich bits of your writing and put it at the forefront.
Think about the average Wikipedia page. Is the pertinent information spread thinly throughout the article, or is it condensed at the top? Even academic research is presented differently when for an online audience.
Sources to Include
When you start writing for Wikipedia, it’s important to get the right information, but it’s also important to get it from the right sources. Different people with different perspectives and opinions could read/edit your article, so the information must be reliable.
Just going by its own standards, Wikipedia broadly lists the most reliable sources as
- university-level textbooks
- books published by respected publishing houses
- magazines
- journals
- mainstream newspapers
Just to play it safe, aim for sources that are third party, unbiased, verifiable/reliable, and relatively recent or updated. Even if people fall on different sides about a topic, they will likely concede to empirically accurate sources.
Moving Forward
Most of what I learned from writing on Wikipedia is more applicable for my future career than for my other classes. Professors will still prefer lengthy essays with traditionally structured paragraphs and lots of exposition, and online audiences will still… probably scroll past those.
Instead, you’re learning in real time about working with others online. Writing for Wikipedia is about trying to add something of value to an article, with the help (or occasional hindrance) of others. All you can really do is try to focus on making your writing as densely-packed, accurate, and eye-catching as possible, because that’s what most good writing is.
